Egypt's notorious emergency law lapses

"They deliberately withheld this essential information on the sale of the bank from other share traders to execute their criminal plot and violate the principles of transparency and equality between traders," said the statement. It did not specify the role of each of the nine defendants nor announce a date for the trial.

The seven other defendants are free on bail but banned from leaving the country.

The prosecutor's statement said Gamal, 48, unlawfully made a profit of nearly 500 million Egyptian pounds from the sale of the Al Watany Bank of Egypt and that his brother Alaa, believed to be around 50, used insider information about the bank to reap an illegal profit of some 12 million Egyptian pounds.

Two of the seven men charged along with the Mubarak sons are the joint chief executive officers of Hermes, one of the Middle East's top investment banks with branches in nine Arab nations. They are Yasser El-Malawny and Hassan Heikal, son of Mohammed Hassanein Heikal, Egypt's best known political writer and a longtime confidante of the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

Late Wednesday, Hermes said in a statement that its two chief executives acted properly in the aqcuisition of the Al Watany bank, in which the National Bank of Kuwait took nearly a 100 percent stake in November 2007.

"The two chief executive officers had no personal interest, gain or any dealings or trading in the shares of the Al Watany Bank of Egypt," it said, adding that the company has taken the necessary legal actions to defend them.

The three Mubaraks, along with the ousted leader's security chief and four of his top aides, will hear the court's verdict on the case already in progress on June 2.

Gamal Mubarak was viewed by many as a corrupt politician who used his father's position to illegally amass a fortune while working along with a coterie of regime-backed wealthy businessmen and powerful politicians to ensure that he succeeded his father.

He rapidly rose to the top of his father's ruling National Democratic Party to become its de facto boss on the eve of his father's ouster, when he also was effectively running Egypt's day-to-day affairs. At the time of the uprising, there was growing anxiety in Egypt that his succession was imminent. That anxiety is seen as one of the key sparks for the uprising that overthrew Mubarak.

Many of Gamal's closest allies are among some three dozen regime stalwarts in detention facing charges of corruption. Some of them have been convicted and sentenced to prison terms.

The new charges came two days after Shafiq was officially declared one of two top vote-getters in the first round of presidential elections held on May 23-24. Shafiq and the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi will now go head-to-hear in a runoff vote on June 16-17. The winner will be announced June 21, the last step before the generals are due to hand over power.

A Shafiq presidency would mean the continuation of de facto military rule in Egypt, where all four presidents since the overthrow of the monarchy nearly 60 years have been of military background.